States’ Rights Champion Rick Perry Blasts Obama For ‘Cavalierly’ Ignoring Federal Law

Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during a rally for South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, who announced her candidacy for a second term at the Bi-Lo Center, Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, in Greenville, S.C.
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), a states’ rights champion with an on-again, off-again flirtation with the secession doctrine, blasted President Barack Obama on Thursday for “cavalierly instructing states to ignore federal law.”

The 2012 Republican presidential contender who recently made moves toward a possible run in 2016 took issue with Obama’s one-year administrative fix for insurance cancellations in the individual health market by claiming the White House was forcing states to correct the “massive problem his signature law has created for millions of Americans.”

“Obamacare is an abject failure,” he reiterated, according to the Associated Press.

Insurance providers have been canceling many substandard policies that do not meet minimum benefit requirements under the Affordable Care Act. Obama’s administrative “fix,” announced Thursday, would allow — but not require — insurers to continue existing insurance policies for current policy holders. Similar legislation is currently being considered by both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. 

In a trip to Dallas earlier this month the president urged Perry to expand Medicare in Texas, which would provide insurance coverage to nearly a million of its poor residents.

Perry raised eye-brows after his re-election in 2010 when he suggested that Texas could lead the charge against federal intrusion by seceding from the successful Social Security program. That remark was preceded a year earlier by an address to Tea Party Republicans in which Perry invoked a form of nullification.

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: